The moment Teresa Silver stepped outdoors in the early evening of Tuesday, March 6, she detected the foul odor.

“I knew it wasn’t natural gas. To me it was like an industrial toxic substance. The fumes were so pungent,” she said.

Silver, a Master Gardener, has lived in a neighborhood near Maple and South Milford Road in Milford Township for six years and was worried about the mystery odor’s impact on ponds in the area, natural wildlife, water wells, and her own health.

“This is a sleepy little neighborhood. We have woods surrounding our houses. We have Kensington (Metropark) west of us. There’s nothing here that could have generated that smell. The nearest industrial place is on Pontiac Trail,” she said. "I just had to know what it was. I knew it was more than just a neighborhood event.”

She began to sniff around for clues that night and called the Milford Fire Department and DTE Energy. She said the DTE representative detected the scent of diesel fuel and a firefighter noticed a “race car fluid” smell. Neither could pinpoint the smell’s origin and by the following morning the air was clear.

Mystery solved

A neighbor remembered smelling a similar intense odor at his business years ago after a jet dumped fuel during its flight. His experience prompted her to make a few phone calls.

She talked with a former U.S. Air Force colonel who told her told her an airplane might jettison fuel for safety reasons, but that it didn’t happen often. She dialed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and got a return call a week later that confirmed her suspicion.

“A gentleman from the FAA called me saying we actually had an incident. He told me if I have any breathing difficulty I should call a doctor. He said by and large it's (fuel) a fine mist and it dissipates in the atmosphere before it comes down, but the smell can linger much longer.”

In an email to hometownlife.com, FAA Great Lakes Region spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory confirmed that a Mexico-bound cargo plane, a Boeing 727, jettisoned fuel during its flight after departing Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti.

“If an aircraft is heavily loaded with fuel, it will need to lose weight in order to land safely. It’s rare, because of fuel costs, but pilots may jettison fuel to lighten their load. Fuel is most often jettisoned over water, unless the emergency or geography prevents a plane from getting to water. The goal is to get the plane safely on the ground as quickly as possible.”

High in the sky

Tiffany Brown, public information officer for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality said jet fuel released above 5,000 feet is “expected to evaporate completely before it reaches the ground.”

Silver said she contacted the MDEQ days after the incident, but was told it was too late to test air quality. The agency referred her to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for questions about water quality and health, she said.

Silver said she was relieved that the fumes weren’t toxic, but she plans to keep an eye on the ponds and wildlife in her neighborhood.

“My little neighborhood is like a wildlife sanctuary with deer and a flock of wild turkeys that stroll through all of our yards several times a day. My yard is also home to endangered bluebirds, who are fond of a crab apple tree in my back yard, so I have a bluebird nesting box that I monitor throughout the spring to help them increase their numbers. All of that in addition to the fact that I was, apparently, standing out in the middle of my driveway when the fuel was dumped, so I've got concerns.”